


Anything Less

by NeverComingHome



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: Asexual Character, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-01-26 23:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1705880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverComingHome/pseuds/NeverComingHome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Falling Up.</p>
<p>They never stop figuring it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Doranwen wanted to see a bit more of their relationship and I realized I did too so here we go ^_^

Human resources had gotten into the habit of synchronizing their schedules to save themselves the trouble of redoing the paperwork when Dr. Isles calld out on Detective Rizzoli’s day offs and Detective Rizzoli clocked out early on Dr. Isles day offs. Jane had wanted to pack up her apartment quickly and alone and could only assume that the fates had conspired to work against her. She’d expected Maura to be picky about what she allowed in her home, but on the contrary the other woman was unearthing gifts and trinkets that Jane had thought she’d successfully smothered in the various dark holes of her apartment. 

“I never knew you loved flowers this much!” Maura exclaimed from her bedroom and Jane tilted her head back and groaned. “Aw, they’re original Allen Peretti,” she emerged with a stack of the canvases, “why were these hidden in the back of your closet?”

“I wrote his sister a recommendation later that got her into Internal Affairs. He sends ‘em every Christmas.”

“But he’s in seclusion; he sold five of his greatest pieces, burned the rest and hasn’t been seen since.”

“Yeah?” Jane turned her head away from the ceramics she was wrapping in newspaper to peer at the one Maura had laid down to better inspect another.

“Take ‘em, they look like boy bits.”

Maura rolled her eyes, “They do n-“ she twisted the canvas to the side, “huh, I thought it was supposed to be a tower.”

Before Jane could reply Maura was stacking the portraits on the couch and taking a seat beside Jane to unwrap one of the figurines. “These are adorable.”

“Storage.”

“What about this one?”

“Storage.”

“Oh this, this would go with my glass zen doves.”

“Only if your glass zen doves are in storage.”

“Maybe this would go quicker if you told me what you are keeping.”

Jane bit off a strip of tape. “You’re here, I’m keeping you.”

She said it without thinking and shouldn’t have been surprised at the look it brought to Maura’s face, but she was. Jane was bilingual in sarcasm and fluent in teasing, but Maura had a way of filtering out the biting tone of her remarks from the truth of her words and she made sure Jane knew it, drawing attention to the moments with her silence. She rested her head on Jane’s shoulder.

“They would look really cute with the doves.”

Jane put them in the box.

~*~  
Sometimes Maura would wake up at some odd hour of the night and Jane wouldn’t be there. The first time Maura had walked through every room then texted her and gotten a “be home soon”. She was always back before they had to go in so Maura watched national geographic or read herself to sleep with a cup of tea. The pamphlets were in a drawer somewhere, wrinkled and wavy from all the times Jane had shoved them hastily out of sight when someone happened upon her reading them. The books Maura had bought her were obscenely un-thumbed and would’ve had a healthy layer of dust if Maura didn’t regularly go over the bottom shelf they hadn’t left since Jane had put them there. 

She wasn’t particularly inclined to bring up the matter because as Jane’s belongings mingled with hers their owner became even more of a permanent fixture. Apart of Maura was horrified as she stared at the baggies of evidence and case files inches away from the fresh ingredients Jane was using to make breakfast while talking to the disembodied voice of Vince, but apart of her was also very, very smug. Jane Rizzoli, commitment ‘phobe of the year who had insisted that she was happier living alone, had two plates out and was idly rearranging the spices.

“Hey looks like they found that cruiser, I’m by your place, want a ride?”

“I’m not at my apartment, how about I meet you there.”

“But you said you were home.”

“Well…”

“Good morning Korsak.”

Jane dropped an omelet onto one of the plates as Vince, not missing a beat, asked Maura if she’d mind cutting her weekend short to come along in case their hunch was right and their missing informant was the John. When she agreed he chirped a goodbye to Jane and hung up. 

“I understand not telling your mother, but your partners?”

“I was sort of hoping him and Frost would figure it out. Some detectives, right?”

“Before the day is out you and I are having a conversation.”

“Are you sure you've never been anyone's wife?”

Maura picked up the plate and pecked her cheek. “Thanks for breakfast, _honey_.”

~*~  
Someone was killing their informants in a sporadic and nonsensical manner; pending trials, closed cases, open cases-all of them spanning the last ten years. Their murder board was a labyrinth of dead ends and thickly retraced question marks. The latest vics’ identity had found its way out of the bull pit and their undercover cops had found themselves coming up against a brick wall, their investigations at a standstill as every thug in town spread the word that anyone cooperating with the force had a target on their head. Street justice they were calling it and even the beat cops weren’t able to loosen any lips with promises of cash or a clean record. 

“We thinking gang or serial killer?”

Barry shrugged. “The murders are too polished for a gang, but the Amos brothers were killed at the same time so there’s no way we’re looking for one suspect.”

“When does IA get in?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I pulled strings to keep us in the know, but that stays here. Anyone who has checked out these files is going to be under intense scrutiny, we can’t afford any bias.”

“About that…”

Apparently their coworkers weren’t as lax as they appeared to be and had noted whenever anyone without clearance had circumvented procedure and, in anticipation of the visit, compiled a list of names. Maura’s was on it. Barry had been given the task of telling Jane that until it blew over she had two capable partners and with her track record she was more useful hunting down leads rather than hanging out in the morgue regardless. Until the interviews were finished she wasn’t to be seen working with anyone whose name was on the list.

“Everyone knows the lab gets privileges, this is just going to slow us down."

Vince got up to follow Barry to the elevator. “We have to play ball if we want to stay in the loop, the game never changes. We’ll say hello to the doc for ya.”

Jane nodded and watched them go.

~*~  
She spent the day fruitlessly trying to get anything from her usually reliable sources and most of the night with crossed arms in front of the board, waiting for something to jump out at her. When the café closed for the night her mother showed up with coffee, bagels, and Maura. 

“The food can stay, you two know where the door is.”

“Don’t be a brat, nobody's here and it's not like I'm telling. Do you know Jane sat at your guys’ table and wouldn’t let anyone take the other seat? It was like watching a puppy cry.”

“Ma!”

“And Maura did the same thing.”

“I didn’t tell anyone they couldn’t, I simply...left when they did.”

Jane laughed at the thought, but even after Angela left them to it the first words out of Jane’s mouth was about the case. Maura sat on the edge of the desk while Jane laid out what they had so far and went over the notes Vince and Barry had left her, asking questions about their questions. Maura’s thoughts wandered, she backed up her facts with other facts, went on tangents about relating cases, returned to the subject, went quiet as she thought about something, and then rearranged the board without explaining what she was doing. 

Had it really only been less than twenty four hours they’d spent apart? It felt longer. Especially when Jane realized where she was going and soon they were shoulder to shoulder, pointing and interrupting each other in the otherwise quiet of the room. When Maura discovered that one of Jane’s theories was hinged on a misprint she groaned and rubbed her eyes.

“You should've been a detective, I'd be a happier person if I had about ten of you around.”

Without thinking twice Maura kissed her. It was less ‘I want you’ and more ‘you’re wanted’, Jane was disappearing in the middle of the night and nobody knew about them, but what they had was worth having. Jane returned the kiss because it didn’t make her heart race in her chest and it didn’t make her want to find the nearest flat surface and question her sexuality. It was the kind of kiss that made her shoulders slump and want to go to bed because Maura’s internal alarm clock meant that Jane would wake up to a voice instead of a beep and maybe her day would turn out a little bit better because of that. She interlaced their fingers.

“Let’s go home.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a/n: A thank you to Doranwen is in order for the kindly offered doubleplusgood beta work ^_^

The murders stopped in the weeks following the visit from Internal Affairs which only made them more adamant that the killer was working from the inside and biding their time until the trail ran cold. It meant that even though Maura was cleared of any wrong doing, it was being heavily hinted that favoritism would attract the wrong kind of attention. Despite the seeming lack of contact Maura continued to talk animatedly about her other projects to anyone who asked how she was doing and Jane hardly batted an eye at the rookie who kept calling her Detective Riz. Frankie and Barry were convinced something was up, but to Vince it meant Jane didn’t complain about staying upstairs while he talked no kill animal shelters and hockey with Maura’s new second assistant while waiting to be briefed.

“They see each other outside of work, what’s to miss? It’s always a conspiracy with you two. Want my advice? Stay out of it. We’ve got enough unofficial investigations going on around here without trying to figure out why the two people who make our jobs easy are in good moods. C’mon, get a grip boys.”

They nodded, but the moment his back was turned they started brainstorming ways to confirm their suspicions. After fleshing out an idea worthy of the greatest screwball comedies, Angela dashed their dreams announcing that she’d earned a citizen's award thanks to nominations by the elder Rizzoli's faithful customers who had witnessed her dropping off food baskets to the homeless in her free time.

“Now, they’re already putting my picture in the paper so I don’t need some fancy banquet. I’d rather have a nice family sit down. Remember those? When my children weren’t too busy for a little quality--“

Maura clapped her hands. “This weekend, dinner at ou-“, she cleared her throat, “-my place, open invitation.”

“Oh, you.” Angela wrapped Maura up in a hug that was heartily returned while making a promise to pass the message along to Jane.

~*~

She told her about the dinner on their way home, but they didn’t talk about the dinner until the night before when Maura was planning the menu while Jane split her attention between a monster movie and Jo Friday’s attempts to make Bass chase her.

“You’re missing the most adorable show down in history.”

Maura took the pen from her mouth. “I suppose it is cute in a spiky, arachnid sort of way.”

“What? No, I meant puppy vs turtle round two.”

“Oh.” She set the legal pad aside to look down at the pair. “Aw. It’s almost midnight.”

Jane’s focus was back on the television. “Yeah, I wonder how they’re going to wrap this up.”

“You said before the day was out you’d help me plan your mother’s dinner and it’s almost midnight. You have ten minutes to contribute.”

It took her five minutes to go through the cupboards and determine what they needed in general and what Jane could absolutely not forget to pick up for the menu Maura had prepared. It took another five minutes for Maura to figure out that she’d gone from the kitchen into their bedroom in a half hearted attempt to avoid--

“If you’re not ready to tell them I’d rather you tell me. Now. I don’t want to set myself up for disappointment. Tomorrow is your mother’s night, I completely understand if you want to wait.”

Jane brought her feet off the floor and onto the bed, crossing her legs so Maura could lay on her stomach in front of her.

“You’re right, I might not be entirely ecstatic about having relationship share time with people who literally get paid to ask invasive questions, but I won’t back down. I promise.” She felt the resolve entering her words as she spoke them.

~*~

At seven in the morning Maura woke up to an empty bed and the sound of the front door being locked. She kept still, watching through partially closed lids as Jane changed out of jeans and a sweater into sweat pants and a training bra. When she turned around Maura closed her eyes and leveled out her breathing while Jane dragged her sneakers from under the bed and put them. She rubbed Maura’s leg from over the covers.  
“Good morning, it’s that time.” Maura waited for Jane to kiss her forehead, then her cheek. “Wake up wake up wake up.”

“I’m up,” she murmured, whispered her thoughts still cloudy.

“Not yet, you aren’t. Come on, you’re slowing me down already.”

Maura yawned and exhaled as she lifted off the warmth of her pillow. “Alright, alright I’m up.”

For five seconds, an entire five seconds Maura thought of asking Jane where she’d been. She was staring at that familiar playful smile and idly swaying head that meant she’d probably been listening to music on her way back from wherever it was she’d been and still had the beat stuck in her thoughts.

“Coffee?” She asked instead.

~*~

At dinner they all went around the table and toasted Angela and were temporarily distracted by stories of the soup kitchens she’d taken her kids to which inevitably lead to the retelling of the time Frankie became so upset about the idea of people not having moms to cook for them that he saved all his meals to give away until he passed out while doing the president’s fitness test which lead to Jane having to beat someone up for calling her little brother “man-orexic”. Jane was almost convinced she’d be able to get away with sending a mass text message in lieu of an actual announcement when halfway through dinner Vince called from the kitchen.

“So how do you like staying with the doc, Jane?”

The table quieted.

On the fridge there was a thank you flyer for updating her ASPCA membership which he’d seen while grabbing another beer and in typical Vince fashion was completely surprised at the looks of surprise he returned to.

“What happened?”

Tommy snapped his fingers and pointed them at Frankie and Barry. “Ooh I so called it. Who’s the pervert now.”

“Still you,” Frankie returned prompting a chuckle from Barry.

  
“Yeah, always you.”

“I don’t get it,” Angela sat her glass of wine down, “so she’s been staying here, so what?”

Vince shrugged, “Yeah, so what? Mazel tov.”

It took a minute for everyone at the table to get on the same page and when they did Jane finished off her beer and changed the page. She’d read the sites and watched the interviews, but as questions and smaller conversations began to bubble up she summed up their situation pretty easily.

“I’m straight, Maura’s not, we’re living together, dating each other and only each other and if any of you think about asking about our love life I’m going to give you the same answer I always have: shut up,” she paused, “or ‘gross ma, stop it’. Capiche?”

Silent nods were had and forks were just returning to plates when Angela furiously dropped her own.

“You moved and didn’t tell me? What if there was an emergency? Arty is going out of business for want of renting out his truck, I told you months ago.”

“Doesn’t Arty haul fertilizer in that truck?” Frankie asked Tommy who nodded. “I wouldn’t want my boxes smelling like-“

“Watch your mouth.”

“-crud,” Maura interrupted; speaking for the first time despite the fact she was looking at Jane, “I’m sure he was going to say crud, Ms. Rizzoli.”

The conversation continued on and it was then that Maura realized she’d probably been more nervous about it than Jane in the long run. Jane wasn’t the one who’d been put up for adoption after all, hadn’t spent her formative years being the type of daughter her mother wanted to spend time with only to have a repeat performance as an adult. She was used to unconditional acceptance and maybe Maura hadn’t wanted to admit that the only thing keeping her from telling everyone was simply the fact that she didn’t like telling anybody anything in general.

Maybe it wasn’t Jane who had the problem of being close to people.

~*~

At the end of the night Angela hugged them both and told Jane that now she could pop in on them with the knowledge that someone would be home to let in her which would be necessary since she intended on teaching Maura Jane’s favorite meals and helping Jane learn Maura’s favorite meals because no child of hers was going to sit around while their significant other slaved away in the kitchen every night. Maura grinned and assured her that she’d be delighted to try out some of Angela’s recipes and Jane nodded, but as soon as the door was shut she sighed.

“You lied to me.”

“What? No! Did I?” She lifted her arms up and gave them an experimental scratch.

“You said if I moved in things would change.”

“They are. Your mother isn’t complaining about your diet and look,” she pointed to a camera in a nook towards the ceiling, “now when she pops in you’ll see her coming.”

“If I could threaten you with no sex this would be the moment.” She said it with a straight face, but when Maura woke up in the middle of the night Jane’s head was on Maura’s outstretched arm with barely a space between them.

~*~

The alarm went off so she knew something was wrong. She kept setting it out of habit, but it was he first time since Jane moved in that she heard the electronic chirp going off next to her head. She swiped at it, too hard, and it fell behind the bedside table, still going off and forcing her to blearily attempt to move the table which clipped the side of her toe which made her drop back onto the bed which made her remember how much she’d rather fall back asleep.

She didn’t have time to formulate a thought beyond ‘so loud’ when a series of knocks joined the noise and she left the clock to answer the door.

“We’re looking for Jane Rizzoli.”

“Frankie?”

Another officer stepped in front of the other man. “Ma’am? We’re looking for Jane Rizzoli, have you seen her?”

“Last night, I was with her last night.”

“All night?”

“What’s going on?”

Frankie exchanged a look with the officer then said it. “Someone walked in on Jane killing her landlord at her apartment, she ran, evidence was found tying her to the recent murders.”

Her apartment. Not ‘an’ apartment, but hers. They all had work today so the dinner had been early and they’d gone to bed early which meant the middle of the night translated into eleven which left plenty of time for other things.  
“Her landlord used to be an informant back in the day. We need to find her..”

“I don’t know,” there was something in her throat, no muscle contractions, not an actual thing that was impossible. An adam’s apple was the result of an over developed, “I don’t know where she is.”

“We’d like you to come in for questioning.”

“I have no idea where she is. All these weeks.”

“You’re not under arrest, but I strongly suggest you wait until we’re at the station before saying anything.” Frankie’s tone finally gave. “Come on, Maura, go get dressed please.”

~*~

Jane’s landlord had been a snitch back in the day, but had recently been burned by his partner who found out that not only had he been using his protective detail to deal on the side (cutting his partner out of the profits) he’d also learned a few surefire ways of covering up murder which unearthed some severely repressed homicidal tendencies. Jane had seen him taking a suspicious looking garbage bag out of one of the apartments whose owner was away on business. She told him that she was keeping her apartment in case things went south with her new girlfriend then checked every hidden nook to see if he’d take the bait. Eventually he did, storing a cache of weapons and materials for his next kill. She intended to plant a rat’s nest then call the city anonymously but he’d walked in on her in the act and there’d been a fight.

When the evidence cleared she’d be getting her last strike and the next one would get her transferred, but for the moment there she was in an interrogation room with Maura sitting on the other side of the table.

“I kept waiting for you to ask where I was disappearing off to, but you never did.”

“I was worried.”

“About?”

“There are things I can’t give you, I know that, but you seemed happy and you kept leaving but you seemed happy. I thought ‘this is how it has to be for us to work’. I thought I’d learn to accept it.”

“Well don’t, Maura, and don’t expect me to, because if I wake up in the middle of the night and you’re gone I’ll put out an APB for you and your tortoise.”

“You said tortoise.”

“I know, you’re a bad influence.”

On the wall to their left the light on the ‘no touching’ sign flicked off. Jane rolled her eyes, but Maura smiled and took on Jane’s cuffed hands into her own and squeezed.


End file.
